1.  A new poll from Rasmussen Reports found that only 13% of Americans want any form of government-run health care to require that abortion be a covered benefit.

58% say abortion is morally wrong most of the time.

2.  A new report from Americans United for Life (AUL) compiled a comprehensive list of 60 pro-life measures on abortion and bioethics issues that were enacted into law in state legislatures during the 2009 legislative sessions. 

AUL said this was "a marked increase from 2008."

AUL president Charmaine Yoest told LifeNews.com, "Clearly, we are making progress at the state level-law by law and state by state-to protect and defend life.  We are encouraged by the progress that has been made in 2009 and enthusiastically look forward to working with pro-life legislators to advance pro-life legislation and policies in 2010."

3.  The Sierra Vista Herald reports that two pro-life measures passed in Arizona have been attacked by Planned Parenthood (PP) and the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights (CPR), which filed a lawsuit to try to keep the laws from going into effect on September 30.

The statutes ban partial-birth abortions, protect health care workers, and provide women information about the nature of abortions, including potential problems.

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the pro-life Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) are seeking to intervene in the case in support of the laws passed by the legislature and signed by Governor Jan Brewer last July.

ADF senior legal counsel Steven Aden told LifeNews.com, "Everyone deserves full and accurate information before undergoing any medical procedure.  If Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights really cared about women's rights, they'd support laws that allow women to make fully informed choices instead of challenging these laws in court."

Aden said he expected the constitutionality of the two laws to be upheld, since "these types of protections have been repeatedly upheld" in other states.

CAP president Cathi Herrod  said, "Women, like anyone else considering any other medical procedure, deserve information about the abortion procedure, its risks and alternatives, as well as an in-person consultation with a doctor."

4.  A high-ranking Vatican official has stated that "neither Holy Communion nor funeral rites should be administered to" Catholic politicians who support abortion or same-sex marriage.

LifeNews.com reported that Archbishop Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Vatican's Apostolic Signatura (a position in the Church somewhat equivalent to that of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), said, "To deny these is not a judgment of the soul, but a recognition of the scandal and its effects."

Sen. Ted Kennedy, a strong advocate of abortion and homosexual rights, received a televised Catholic funeral ceremony in Boston in which Cardinal Sean O'Malley presided.

Burke said Catholics "should have the courage to look truth in the eye and call things by their common names.  It is not possible to be a practicing Catholic and to conduct oneself in this manner."